Sleeping Away
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: He knows they're all thinking it. Charlie stepped in front of the car.


A/N: this began as me trying to explain how Charlie ended up with Matthew's dressing gown. Suffice to say it is no longer that. I also tried my hand at an extended metaphor. If you're so inclined, let me know what you think :-) (warnings: mostly canon stuff, except one scene with horror movie quantities of blood.)

People were being very nice to him.

Which he didn't expect. When he finally managed to drag himself home that evening, Jean made him a cup of tea. It was hot and sweet, the first mouthful burned his mouth but he didn't mention it. Everything was going to taste not quite right for the next few days. He drank it anyway out of politeness. She prods him into having something to eat even though he isn't hungry. She'd made some sort of casserole. He doesn't really taste it but he does register the texture of vegetables in there. Kind of a shame, usually, he was very fond of a good casserole.

She doesn't need to prod him into knocking back the pills from the little brown bottle Lucien has left for him. The warning he'd been given at the hospital had sufficiently put the fear of God into him. He needed to keep up with the deep even breaths, lest he accidentally gave himself pneumonia or something else just as horrible. One of his brothers had contracted it as a kid, so he knew first hand just how terrible it was. The station was now down one man, they can't afford to lose anymore.

He tried to get ready for bed, but raising his arms was agonizing and no matter how hard he tries, he just can't undo the two top buttons of his shirt. Mattie had done them up for the hospital. She'd been uncharacteristically nice to him and rubbed his arm while assuring him it wasn't his fault. He's not wearing a shirt and he's keenly aware of that. The cold air of the hospital raises goose bumps on his skin. Usually, he'd be embarrassed to be shirtless in front of a pretty girl. It really wasn't appropriate for an officer of the law to be half undressed in front of his housemate. She didn't seem to care about it, just pressed on his side to find the broken ribs and make notations on her little clipboard. She counts his heartbeat and shines a light in his eyes. Then, she wrapped his ribs in a tight bandage that hurt immensely. She assured him again that it wasn't his fault.

Which was a stupid thing for her to say. He doesn't tell her that, of course. He's a polite boy, according to his mother. He should call her; tell her that he's broken two ribs. Or maybe not, she'd just insist he come home. He'd rather be here than there. Anyway: Ray is about to start his boxing tour and Bernie is there. He does not get on with Bernie much. He does not want him to marry his mother. But there was nothing he could do about it. His mother was her own person. He just wanted to protect her the way that she'd protected him. Mattie is oblivious to his internal monologue (thank God), and she tells him to go home. Mycroft Avenue. She knows that he won't, but she tells him anyway. When he left the room to go back to the station, he heard her say it.

'Charlie stepped in front of the car.'

When he finally gave up on the shirt and lay back on the bed he listened to the voices drift in through the cracked door. He always left his door cracked, it was a habit. He'd never had a room of his own before, and his whole life he'd been letting the light in for the brothers who he had been sharing a bed with. They didn't have the money for a house with enough rooms for six children to have their own room. When he'd been very little it was him, his mum and his dad all in the same big bed. They moved eventually to a bigger flat. His brothers came one by one. Charlie loved them all, and he did his best to help his parents care for them where he could. As soon as he could get a job, he's started working for a local fruit shop. He wanted to help. He slept with the door open because it helped his brothers sleep. Eventually, he now realized, it had become something he needed too. He'd adapted.

He'd adapted here too. He'd adapted fast. It had taken him fifteen years to need the door cracked. It had taken one year to throw away everything he thought he knew about policing and become someone else. Someone better, he liked to think. He'd adapted to the murders, and the lax enforcement of the rules he used to live by. He'd adapted so well that Munro, who if they'd met at any other time in any other place, he would have welcomed, couldn't tear him away from this place. He wasn't someone who enjoyed sliding around and stealing, but if it was for the good of Matthew Lawson, he probably wouldn't have done it another way.

Downstairs, Lucien and Mrs. Beazley are still talking. Their voices are nice to listen to. The rise and fall of words like an ocean. The distance between them means that he has no idea what they're actually saying. Maybe he is talking about Matthew. Maybe he is talking about outer space. It makes no difference to him. He is surprised he's home. Charlie had thought that he would be at the hospital. He wonders if he is dreaming. He let his eyes drift halfway closed and imagined himself riding a wave. Up, down, up, down. One perfectly formed line claws its way up through the floorboards.

'Charlie stepped in front of the car.'

A bubble of nausea popped in his throat, acidic and potent. He finally managed to undo his top buttons and throw his shirt onto the floor uncaring of if it crinkled or not. Well, he did care but not enough to get up and put it on a hanger. Tomorrow, he'd regret it. So he got up and put his shirt on a hanger, which he then hung on the back of a chair before climbing into bed again. He lay on his back and focused on taking long deep breaths. He woke up with a sore neck.

He goes into work even though he's, for all intents and purposes, useless. He can't run, can't really type, he can't even make an arrest without feeling like his ribs are going to snap off and come loose. He sat at his desk, pen in hand, writing out reports that would be better off done by someone else. His brain is fuzzy around the edges from the medication. His handwriting is sloppy and any other time he'd have put it straight into the garbage. He wasn't a perfectionist by any means but he did like to have a bit of pride in his work.

He manages half a day before he tells Bill he must go home. Bill nodded and assured him that it would be fine, that he understood. He hopes he feels better soon. Charlie is never sure if he gets along with Bill or not. Sometimes they're friends, sometimes they're enemies. Bill sided with Munro when he thought he was going to win. Maybe his intentions were more general. Charlie had an investment in Matthew and Blake. Bill didn't. Bill seemed to just want to police and drink. Did Bill like Charlie enough to look past his dislike of Doctor Blake?

Actually, he found that a lot recently, in Munro. Lucien had taken off as soon as he could to be with Jean in Adelaide, leaving Charlie and Matthew to tidy up. Munro didn't seem phased, he smugly called a representative and refused to answer questions. He said that Charlie should prepare. For what, Charlie does not know. He will be in court before too long. There will be a summons and he'll have to speak. He'd never say it out loud but he was scared. He might as well just tattoo 'DOG' on his forehead and get it over with. When all this finally ended, no one in their right mind would touch him.

Perhaps out of dedication to his father, at first, Munro liked him. Or, tolerated him. Funny, wasn't it? The person who Munro thought he had under his thumb was the one who did all the heavy lifting in the case against him. He wondered, not infrequently, if that was what his father would have done. No one had ever told him much about his father's career, other than he was a sergeant and a good man. Charlie had learned real fast that good man, in police speak, didn't mean a damn thing.

As he made his way out of the room, he heard the soft voices of his co-workers as they spoke in his absence. Perhaps about the case, perhaps sharing details of the family. Charlie had no idea if any of them even had a family. No, that's not true. He knew Bill didn't, and if pressed he'd say that Ned might have a girl but other than that he didn't know. Did Harris have kids? Did Margie have a husband? In return, they didn't know much about him other than he was a border at Mycroft Avenue, and for all intents and purposes, Matthew's left hand. Speaking of Matthew-

He knew Matthew Lawson had a niece. He'd seen her in the pictures that Matthew had at his place. She was only a small child in those pictures, he imagined she was fully grown now. What sort of relationship did Matthew have with her? The pictures indicated they were close once but were they now? He didn't know.

As he made his escape from the station, drifting behind him he heard Bill speaking.

'Charlie stepped in front of the car.'

He can't run, but he wishes that he could.

Days pass in slow motion. Time passes like spilled honey, thick and slow. His head hurts, his ribs hurt and he wants to go back to bed. Funnily enough, when he is in bed, all he wants is to be up again.

He'd been having difficult dreams. He'd kind of known this. One does not watch their friend, their close friend be hit by a car and then not think about it after. But dreams? Usually, his sleep was empty and his single reprieve from his busy home life. But now, he's been having strange dreams. Most of them involve Matthew. His dreams had involved Matthew when his mind did bother to cough them up. Those had been good dreams, though. Warm dreams. Ones he'd enjoyed, before feeling guilty about pulling Matthew into his mental hang-ups. These dreams are very different. He didn't mind those dreams but he'd do anything to make these ones stop.

The noise that he made when he hit the car is loud and it seems much louder each time. Thump. Like dropping a bag of potatoes, or the sound a book makes when you fall asleep reading and it falls onto the floor. Screaming. He'd heard screaming before; he'd been present for the birth of his youngest brother and he'd death knocked enough doors to know the scream of someone who just lost everything. This was not that. This was agony, shock, and fear. It was entirely new and different and well. Scary.

In his dreams, there's a lot more blood. Blood in his mouth, blood on his hands, blood on the ground and blood on Matthew. No matter how tight he makes the tourniquet, he keeps bleeding. Charlie is covered in blood up to his elbows and nothing he does seems to make a difference. The man who had called the hospital for him in real life does not show up. Charlie sits there, coated in thick, sticky blood, screaming until Matthew stops moving.

Sometimes, if he's lucky, Matthew will get to the hospital before he dies. Lucien decks him, and inside his skull, he hears something, probably his nose, crunching. He falls. He takes the beating willingly. He still cries. He wakes up soaked in sweat and sad. His ribs hurt. His skin feels too tight.

But life continues. It's a wet month. Lots of storms.

Matthew comes to the station to pick up his things. He does not speak any great amount to Charlie and Charlie does not speak any great amount to him. He doesn't know what he should say if there is anything for him to say at all. 'Thanks for breaking a leg for me.' seems a bit crass. 'I'm sorry I did this too you' seems too earnest so he opts to say nothing. He knows Rose Anderson. Looking back, he maybe should have known. Or maybe not. She doesn't really look like him.

She doesn't say it but he knows she's thinking it when she looks at him. Charlie stepped in front of the car.

That afternoon, he decides to go back home for a while.

There are no brothers waiting there for him. No little ones, at least. Just Ray. Bernie has sent the others away to boarding school. A good one, he says, to Charlie as he sits at the table trying not to make eye contact with him. ' They like it there." Ray assures him. Charlie doesn't like that. He'd wanted to see his brothers. Family should be with family, is what he thinks but he's very aware that his absence excludes him from making choices with the family.

His mother has a new dress. And coat, one with fur on the neckline. He hasn't seen her wear something like that in his whole life. Not since he saw pictures at his grandparent's house. Shirley Davis hadn't always been poor. She used to have nice things; but she'd had to sell most of them over the years to make sure they had enough money. By the time Charlie was bringing in any money, there was hardly any of her nice things left, and the argument with her mother meant there was no chance of ever getting new ones.

During the day, he tries to stay clear of Bernie and mostly, he manages. He's out there giving Ray boxing lessons, while Charlie hides away at home. He can't sleep at night, the bed's too big and still. There is no sound of other breathing or movement. He tries to go to bed early in the hopes that he'll be able to fall asleep. It doesn't work. He feels like his boy is being squeezed into a peg hole that is just the wrong shape. One night, Bernie switches off the hallway light and closes the cracked door. Charlie leaves the following morning.

Everything has changed when he gets back. There is a new man sitting where Matthew used to sit, and he's sitting there because Charlie put him there. But he's...Nice. Normal. So normal that it makes him uncomfortable. Frank Carlyle just...Exists. He never shows an advanced interest in Charlie. He has no idea that Charlie came here as a spy. The only thing he knows is what other people have mentioned and it would seem he is not a frequent topic of discussion. Which is, in his own opinion, a good thing.

Blake is off in his own little Jean-centered world. Probably where he should be. It's good to see them happy. He won't lie, it's sort of infectious. It makes him want to invest the time in his own love life for even one-fifth of their happiness. But no matter how hard he tried, or what he did, he couldn't escape the obvious.

He missed Matthew. That became clear to him on the first day back at work. He missed the sound of his voice, and he missed talking to him about the case. He missed his shadow against the window and the halting rhythm of his typing. Sometimes, he thinks he should call, just to say hi. Ask him how he is. Matthew probably doesn't want to hear from him, though. Why would he?

Charlie stepped in front of the car, after all.

He's so tired that he's taken to napping in the afternoons. He can't sleep at night, not properly. Sometimes, he's seen the Doc prescribe pills to the surviving family members of victims who can't sleep. Maybe if he asked, he'd get pills too. He remembers his mother taking sleeping pills when his youngest brother was born. She took them because her husband was dead and the birth had taken more than twenty-four hours. Charlie had always thought the more children you had, the easier it became, but apparently, that was not true. After she started taking them, she'd sleep like the dead. She'd sleep through alarms, and through Charlie shaking her. He didn't want that.

Eventually, he reasoned, as he tried to resist the urge to toss and turn, this would all be a distant unpleasant memory. As all bad things eventually became. His father's death seemed to have happened so long ago now he was the only one who could remember. Ten years isn't so long ago. He'd been at the police academy at the time. He was coming first in class for the first time in his life. His father was shot fifteen times, in a back alleyway. If he was interrupting the drug deal or dealing the drugs had never quite been determined. Charlie had to identify the body properly since they didn't want his pregnant mother to see and the others were all too young. So Charlie it was.

He didn't have a face when the sheet was pulled back. It was gone. A rifle and a handgun had been used, he'd later learn. Two men had seen fit to shoot his father to death, leaving his eldest son to know it was him by a freckle on his neck. People would later describe it as terrible business. Charlie makes his mother swear that she will have him cremated. As far as he knows, the ashes are still in her bedroom, sitting on the dresser that can only be opened by closing the door.

He did manage to sleep. Matthew is in hospital, Charlie is visiting him. The floor tiles are shiny, the nurses he passes eye him and think to themselves, what is he doing here? He did this. He ignores them. His feet are sending him forwards, forwards, forwards.

He knows the place well enough. He has navigated the place on his own to find the morgue before. He has made his way through here looking for Mattie when Blake needed her and for Blake when Matthew needed him. He'd even made two arrests in these halls. So navigating to Matthew's room is not difficult, even in the night when the lights are mostly off.

Matthew is in bed, but he's awake and looking out the window. He's pasty coloured, and when he looks at Charlie, his eyebrows bunch together. He doesn't say anything. Neither does Charlie. As he opens his mouth to speak, probably to send him away, he spits blood onto the blankets. Charlie, alarmed, rushes forward. Matthew is still spitting blood and when he looks at Charlie, there is blood on his face. From his eyes, Charlie realizes, frozen in place. Usually, Charlie does not freeze. He fights. Even when it's not in his best interest, he fights. But now, he can't even breath let alone help. By now, Matthew is sitting in blood, it seems to be coming from the gash in his leg too. He reaches out one pale, shaking hand to clamp down on the wound. Blood gushes between his fingers and pushes against his hand in pulses. He finally managed to find his voice wherever it had gone and called for help. None is forthcoming. Desperate now, Charlie releases the wound to reach for his belt. He's not wearing one. He tries to grab his shirt. He's not wearing one of those either. He needs to tie off the wound, just like he did before. Mattie said he did the right thing. He needs to do that again. Desperate now, he reaches for his bloody pants. He can't find the fabric. There is something wet on his face too. Tears? Sweat? He can't tell. Matthew is trying to talk but there is too much blood. Charlie clamps his hands back down on the wound. He is going to bleed out. He's going to bleed out and there is nothing Charlie can do.

He sits up so fast that he hurts his ribs. He sat for a minute or so, catching his breath. It comes in shallow gasps and he has to focus hard on getting them normal again. He got up, sleep ruffled and sweaty. Following the light from the door, he decides to go get a drink. Maybe he will finally ask Lucien for those pills. One foot first, he told himself. One foot, then the next and then one more after that too. This isn't really appropriate. He hadn't even taken off his uniform properly. He is about to turn back when he hears it.

'Charlie stepped in front of the car.'

He has no idea what comes over him. He can't stop his feet even though he wants to. He can only go towards the man who said the offending phrase. I didn't mean too. I didn't mean too. It was an accident, he thinks.  
I didn't mean to imply you did, Lucien assures him. He is moving away from Charlie. He must have said that out loud. Damn. He hadn't meant to. He just wanted to say that he didn't ask for any of this. That he can't sleep. That he misses Matthew. That if he could go back in time and do anything else than he would. So he does. Lucien regards him like some kind of stray dog that has wandered in off the streets. He probably looks like one, sleep deprived and sweaty. Frank Carlyle is sitting at the table holding cards. He says something about Charlie sitting and talking like a rational adult. Instead, he turns on his heel and walks to the door.

He knocks twice on Matthew Lawson's door.

No answer, so he knocks again.

He is about to knock a third time when he hears someone saying something muffled on the other side of the door. It swings open, and Matthew is looking up at him from his wheelchair. He looks annoyed, but Charlie doesn't know if it's because he's here at all, or because he's here right now.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?"

The words pierce the fog that has been sitting on his brain like a lighthouse beam through the fog on a stormy night. It's like the front of his eyes clear up, and the cloudly word is clear again.

"Not really." He replies, awkwardly.

"It's late," Matthew says. "Jesus, you're soaking wet. Tell me you didn't walk here."

"I caught the bus." He admitted, his posture eroded by his desire to curl away from the cold. Matthew is fully dressed still, wearing a plain green shirt and tan pants. So is Charlie, but he's far more rumpled. If the bus driver thought it was odd to pick up a half-dressed police officer on the late route he didn't say anything.

"The nearest bus stop is ten minutes away." He sounds alarmed.

"I walked some of the way."

"You better come in." He says, finally. He wheels aside, and Charlie gratefully steps into the warmed house. He shut the door behind him, and it locks when it does. Nifty mechanism.

Matthew is extremely good at being in charge, even now. Probably exactly what Charlie needed, if his recent choices were anything to go off of.

"Go upstairs, my room is the one on the left. Find yourself something to change into and shower in the ensuite."

He does exactly that. Matthew's room has not changed since the last time he was there. The furniture is charmingly eclectic but in a decisive way. A way that says ' I liked this bedhead, so I put it here' and 'I liked this chair so I brought it.' His childhood home had eclectic furniture as well, but it was not because they wanted it that way, but rather, that was what the Salvos had given them. The room is dusty, except the clothing drawers and, funnily enough, a picture of Matthew and a young girl playing in what might be snow. Matthew's pajamas are all in matching sets. Charlie's pajamas have always been old clothes. He grabs a pair in a colour best described as 'dark teal' and walked into the tiny ensuite.

A hot shower was nice against his cold skin. The shower head was a little low but he wasn't in a position to complain. People must have been shorter when the house was built. That was what his mother would say when his father hit his head on the door frames when he was a child. He knew he had a tendency to hog the hot water, so he did his best to be quick. He wasn't a man of many vices. He didn't smoke, or gamble. He only drank if he couldn't get out of it. Surely, he should be allowed to enjoy a few long, hot showers. As he stepped out; he realized even the towels up here were dusty. He had to shake it out before he could properly get dry and slide into someone else's pressed clothes.

Suddenly self-conscious, he grabbed a green robe that was discarded on the bed. He knotted the belt around his hips tightly, before returning to gather up his wet clothes. He hung them on the rail for the shower curtain to air dry. Finally, he came back downstairs. He followed the sound of a record player to the living room. Matthew was sitting with his foot on the coffee table, a crease on his forehead.

"You didn't come see me at the hospital." He said as Charlie sat by him.

"I didn't think you'd want to see me." read: I'm a coward.

"Why would you think that?"

"I figure you probably didn't do it on purpose. Save me, I mean. It was a reflex. Like breathing, or sneezing. Probably didn't want to see the idiot who ruined your career."

"My career?" Matthew asked, "I'm more upset that I broke your ribs than I am about my career. Why come now, in the middle of the night in a storm?" He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, not sure if he should tell the truth or not. He decides that the truth was probably better.

"I had a dream. About you. Guess I forgot it wasn't real."

"And you had to check I was okay?"

"How did you know?" Matthew made a vague hand gesture. He allowed Charlie to scoot a little closer.

"Experience."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really anything to talk about." He said. "Not right now, at least. Have you gotten any sleep in the last week?"

"Not really." He parrots.

"You should go get some. You're rostered on tomorrow, or so Hobart tells me."

"I don't want to sleep. All the beds here are too big and too empty."

"Do you kick in your sleep?"

"Not usually."

"Go to bed in there. I'll be in later." Charlie nods to himself, it seems like such a simple explanation and he was too stupid to see it.

"Will you keep the door cracked, just a little?"

"You're pushing your luck, but alright. Now go, before I call Blake to pick you up."

He went. He fell asleep in moments, and he slept the whole night long.


End file.
